


Presenting Flies

by kitty_pryde_bi_pride



Series: spider tendencies [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Peter Parker Acts Like a Spider, Precious Peter Parker, Spider Shenanigans, spider facts!, super spies can still have super feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:41:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25709911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitty_pryde_bi_pride/pseuds/kitty_pryde_bi_pride
Summary: Some male spiders present dead flies to female spiders as presents.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Natasha Romanov
Series: spider tendencies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859734
Comments: 22
Kudos: 700
Collections: MCU Stories, More Spidery Spiderman





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> another day, another post!
> 
> let me know what you think of this- feel free to leave a comment or kudos, it really means a lot :)
> 
> and if you want, drop some cool spider facts below- i might use them as prompts for future chapters!

Natasha Romanoff liked to exude an aura of mystery and unapproachability to the members of the team she doesn’t know well- it’s a good way to observe them and, if need be, let her intimidate the hell out of them.

She’s close to both Clint and Bruce, and has a pretty good friendship built with Tony, Steve, and Sam, but she still hasn’t made many efforts to bond with the new members of their team.

She has copies of all their SHIELD files, of course, has memorized their histories and powers and personalities, but knowing how to approach someone as a secret agent and actually trying to make friends with an artificially intelligent android, teenaged ultra-powerful witch, and middle-aged father who likes to get small and talk with ants is…a little different. 

Most of the team doesn’t live in the tower long-term, though, so it’s easy for her to quietly glare at those she doesn’t know well for the brief periods they’re in the tower- at least, until Tony’s little protégé starts spending more and more weekends with them, even coming in after-school half the week.

Initially, she tries her highly successful method of glaring at him until he leaves whatever room she’s in, but he just ends up looking at her with such a blissfully naïve look of awe and adoration that she gets uncomfortable and walks out first.

Next, she attempts to aggressively ignore him whenever he’s in the room with her, refusing to glance his way even when he tries to start up a conversation with her.

This gets her a lecture from Tony and Bruce, who report that after he finally left her – after nearly an hour, the kid is persistent if nothing else – he went to their shared lab and told them he was worried she hated him.

Apparently, making the kid sad is an egregious offense that necessitates immediate effort to remedy, and they expect Natasha herself to deal with it.

And look, here’s the thing: just because she very much knows how to handle herself in any situation, doesn’t mean she wants to.

She’s the best trained spy and agent in the world, a master of deception and genius in reading people, but she just does not want to bond with this wide-eyed kid who’s thrown himself wholeheartedly into the superhero business.

She won’t say this to anyone else, but he’s so young that he reminds her a little bit of herself- it was his choice to start fighting, his choice especially to join the Avengers, but she’s read his file: the real reason Peter Parker joined the team, behind the wide smile and excited voice, was the death of his uncle.

It hurts her to know that she’s not the only child who’s had red in their ledgers. 

It’s something the rest of the team wouldn’t understand and so she never tries, but she doesn’t want to spend time with the constant reminder of lost childhood innocence.

They tell her to make amends with Peter and she resolves herself to avoid the child even more than before, but the kid is determined and corners her one day while she’s trying to lounge in the room with the best sofas and widest television, catching up on her favorite guilty pleasure show: The Bachelor.

She’s prepared to blow him off, maybe even get up and leave to really send the message that she doesn’t want to talk with him, when he drops on the ground in front of her and deposits a small pile of dead flies in front of her.

There wasn’t anything in his SHIELD file about this.

She grimaces at the dead bugs now between them and feels herself cringe when she sees the same look of awe he always directs towards her- she doesn’t know what to do with that horribly misplaced faith, she had hoped that Tony or someone would let the kid know it was misdirected, but it clearly hasn’t happened yet. 

“Kid. What is this.” Her voice is flat, as uninviting as possible, but shockingly enough he doesn’t seem deterred. 

He rubs at his neck sheepishly before smiling shyly at her. “Well, Miss Black Widow, I realized we haven’t really spoken yet, which sucks considering how much we’re both around the tower. So, I’ve brought a peace offering!”

She frowns at him, refusing to let herself be moved by the gesture. “You brought me a pile of dead bugs.”

“Oh, yeah,” he mutters, poking at them nervously. “It felt like the right move, in the moment, but now I see it was a horrible choice and I regret it deeply. I just-”

She can see that he’s starting to flounder and she takes pity on him- besides, it’s been a while since someone tried so obviously hard for her friendship. It’s…sweet. “Stop,” she commands, and she may have made her voice a little too harsh because the kid freezes in panic. She softens her voice before she continues. “Throw those away and wash your hands. When you’re done, you may sit next to me while I finish this episode. Sound good?”

He nods enthusiastically, bounding over to the kitchen to dispose of the offering and washing his hands before practically running over to the couch. “Thank you, Miss Black Widow! I really appreciate the gesture.”

She reapportions a small section of her overly large blanket so they’re both covered, helping them both get settled before continuing the show, and lets herself smile a little. “You may call me Nat.”

\---

Across the tower, in the shared lab, Tony, Bruce, and Clint gather around the security monitor and watch them, stunned.

“Did he just offer her flies?” Bruce muttered, visibly grossed out. 

Tony scoffs. “Forget that, did you hear her? She told him he could call her Nat- she still won’t let me call her that without punching me!”

“It was years before she let me call her Nat,” Clint mutters under his breath.

“Let’s not forget about the flies,” Bruce protests, gesturing wildly at the air. “He just dumped them in the kitchen, we saw him set those on the counter, we make food there.”

“I think she’d actually kill me if I tried to take some of her blanket, never minding that I’m the one who bought all the furniture in this house,” Tony added.

Clint groans and bangs his head on the counter. “I know she’d kill you- happened to some poor bloke back in Budapest. It was…terrifying.” The archer grimaces, then shakes himself and lifts himself into the closest air vent. “I need some time to adjust.”

Tony sighs and makes his way to the door. “Good idea, I’m heading out too.”

Bruce, left alone in the lab, gesticulates wildly at the monitor. “Does no one care that he brought dead flies into our home?”


	2. Bonus chapter!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here is a bonus chapter due to popular request!

“Okay, do you all remember the plan?” Clint asked, passing out the necessary supplies.

Tony nods affirmatively but Bruce hesitates. “Could you go over it again?”

“Sure thing,” Clint loosens his bag’s drawstring, dumping the contents on the table between them. It contains a commlink, a whistle, and a small baggie of dead flies.

“Oh man, did you have to dump those out on the table,” Bruce mutters half-heartedly, staring at the flies- he’s had to deal with them far more than he would’ve preferred these past few days.

“We are going to present Natasha with the flies, together, and then request access to the best couch. We, out of everyone, deserve it- I’m her best friend, Tony bought it, and Bruce is her sort of boyfriend. It shouldn’t just be for her, Peter and Wanda.” Clint taps on the commlink and whistle. “Sam is going to be on the other end of the comms, by his own request, so he can take notes and attempt to replicate the experiment if successful. The whistle is to call for help if things go wrong- Steve, Sam, and Vision are all here today, in addition to us, Natasha, and Peter, so theoretically one of those three will come and try to save us.”

“And I’ve asked FRIDAY to respond to the whistle sound by deploying a suit to my location, so I’ll have armor and protection right away if she responds badly.” Tony cuts in.

Bruce leans forward. “That sounds like a good plan, what do you have to protect me if things go wrong?”

Clint snorts and looks him up and down. “You’ll turn into the Hulk and we’ll have a whole different problem.”

“I stand corrected,” Bruce sighs, knowing it’s hopeless. “This is a horrible plan.”

\-------

The three men – all intimidating in their own right; one’s a genius billionaire superhero, one’s a multiple doctorate holding invulnerable monster, one’s…Clint – do their best to stand with confidence in front of the Black Widow.

She’s sitting on the coveted couch, pina colada in hand, and is wearing a pair of bulky, black sunglasses. Peter sits next to her with a matching drink – it better be virgin, Tony swears he’ll kick out the whole merry crew if the kid was given alcohol in his tower and that’s not even mentioning what Aunt May will do – and sunglasses.

Under her unyielding stare, they can feel themselves start to wilt a little, but Clint forcibly rallies himself. “We would like to sit on the couch!”

Natasha smoothly reaches up to perch her sunglasses on top of her head in order to look incredulously at them. After a short delay, Peter glances over and mimics the movement, then does his best to match her posture.

“Excuse you?” She asks and her voice is all silk.

Tony tries next. “We would like to sit on the couch!”

The infamous Black Widow sighs, like they’re some great inconvenience to her, then nudges Peter lightly with her elbow. 

He perks up and does his best to glare convincingly at them. “Excuse you?”

Now it’s Bruce’s turn. “We, uh, we would like to sit on the couch!” She doesn’t move and it’s more than a little terrifying, but they came in with a plan and Bruce has committed to this. He reaches into his bag and pulls out the baggy of dead flies, then opens it and throws it onto Natasha and Peter. “We would like to sit on the couch!”

“Ah, jeez, dude,” he hears Clint say, before looking up to see the archer backing away slowly, hand in the air. “Nat, that was not part of the plan- I swear, we never planned to throw the flies at you.”

Tony blows the whistle in panic, but no help comes. There’s no notification from FRIDAY indicating that she’s heard him. He thinks he can hear Sam laughing through the comms.

“маленький паук,” Natasha murmurs, and it’s a command. Peter snaps to his feet and shoots out webs in quick succession, trapping all three men where they stand. “отлично сработано.”

She turns her attention back to them and they’re better than this, but they’re still shaking just a little.

“Now, why do you think you are entitled to the couch?”

“I’m sorry, Natasha, we’re really not and it was a mistake to try and get to it like this—” Bruce tries, he really does, but the others seem determined to dig themselves a deeper grave. 

“I paid for this house!” Tony yells, clearly indignant. “I paid for that couch and I want to be respected in this space!”

She scoffs, leaning back, and Peter hops back onto the couch next to her. He crosses his arms, copying the way she’s sitting, and leans back too. “You approach me in a group, arrange reinforcements, throw flies at me, and demand I let you sit in a specific space, then request my respect? Try again, Stark.”

“I’m your best friend, Nat,” Clint cries out. “Remember Budapest? The bond we formed there- don’t let it break because of a couch!”

“You and I seem to remember Budapest very differently,” she sighs, then taps her ear. “Sam, you may come remove them now.”

“Wha- Sam’s on your side now?” Tony hisses, outraged. “He was our back-up, I offered him a mini-fridge!”

“And he appreciated it,” Natasha answers, smiling slyly. “I offered him a spot on the couch during movie nights.”

Clint shakes his head. “Such a heart-breaking betrayal, I can’t believe this. How did you even know this was going down in advance?”

She grins at them, then pats Peter on the head. “The little spider and I have been training diligently in the art of spying. His enhanced hearing has proven to be quite the asset.”

“Kid?” Tony asks, clearly surprised by the lack of loyalty from his mentee, but Natasha pulls him up before he can start feeling too guilty.

“Come, Peter, we’re going to go train.”

“Hey- what about us?” Bruce calls out weakly.

She glances over her shoulder at them, still stuck fast to the ground, and shrugs. “You’ll be freed whenever Sam gets to you or the webbing dissolves, whichever comes first. Feel free to admire the couch in the meantime.”


End file.
